AIBU to be delighted DS wasted all his Christmas money?

[newnamenewyear]

13yo DS had £70 of Christmas money from various relatives.

Given the last two years we've had with Covid he's not had a lot of experience of hanging about with his mates outside in the world - they just seem to want to be on the computer all the time, so I'm keen to encourage him to be independent and get out and do stuff.

Last weekend, he and a couple of friends went into town. I didn't realise he'd taken ALL his Christmas money with him. He spent it all on absolute crap, moatly for his friends and now has nothing to show for it. I know he wanted to buy a bit of kit for his hobby with it.

He's asked a couple of times if I'll replace it and the answer is no, of course (even though I want to!)

He's annoyed with himself, sad his money is gone and that he can't buy the bit of kit he wanted. He'll have to save up his pocket money now if he wants it.

I'm really hope he's learnt an important lesson - if you waste your money it's gone!

I hope he learns this lesson now, if so it'll be £70 well spent. I was shit with money as a young woman, I don't want him to be like I was.

I would feel sorry for him, because the past two years have been particularly crap. And he was probably delighted to be getting back to normal.
I would be trying to find out if others took advantage of his good nature, and thus his cash, also.

I get where you are coming from too, and think that "delighted" was just an unfortunate choice of phraseology.

I think that for children the life lessons of "when it's gone it's gone" and "money doesn't grow on trees" are important ones. Hard, but important, and you are letting him learn that.

I might be inclined to let him begin earning some of it back over time by being helpful around the house.

I wouldn't just hand it over to him though.

It's a lesson learned isn't it?

Be strong don't bail him out! But give him healthy budgeting advice as in this is where you went wrong so next time you won't make the same mistake

My ex husbands mother always bailed him out one way or another she has just given him another car he is in his 40s and works full time as does his girlfriend I could understand LENDING him a car until he gets some money together but just handing a car over seems ridiculous! But she has always done it and will never change

I get it completely. Maybe now's the time to get him on board for doing some jobs for extra cash towards the kit. Proper extra stuff, washing the car, sweeping leaves etc.

He is same age as my ds an is old enough to know you waste your money then it's your own fault. My ds constantly wastes his money on things on his ps but its his money to waste. if there was something else he wants he will buy that first as he knows I will not buy it then waste the rest.

Incidentally are you Irish by any chance?

I'm Irish & wouldn't use delighted in this context.

Yes I agree we do use it to mean v pleased as opposed to utterly ecstatic. But I still wouldn't be delighted or pleased in this situation!

I am so baffled by this. You admit that he has had a tough year without much opportunity for social relationships away from a screen, and that he hasn't had the chances to go into town and do more teenage activities yet he finally has such an event and instead of guiding him through it (i.e. how much money to take and what he might like to spend it on) you are delighted that he hasn't done it in the way you would like. Surely part of our job as parents is to give our children the tools to make these decisions before they go so wrong - and that can only come with the right advice - delivered at the right time.

Does he do any budgeting at all? It might be a good opportunity to have a conversation with him about it. Explain that if he has £70 or whatever (Or £20 a month pocket money or whatever he gets) he can always set it aside into different "pots". Some for socialising, buying his own food/drinks/cinema entry/bus fare (whatever he needs to buy), some for sharing with friends if he wants to, some for spending, some for saving up for big things. There are various bank accounts you can get now which you can move money around in virtual pots like this. He could have taken £30 out to spend, still had a great time and kept £40 for his hobby stuff - it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

You could even have an arrangement with him where money is kept aside in a "savings account" and you give him interest on it. I did this for DS1 (also 13, but I started when he was 11) and started off with adding 5% per month. He started with about £2 in it so it had to be that high as I wanted him to see the benefit immediately and it was literally pennies at first. He had to ask for permission to take money out of that pot and I would ask him what he intended to spend it on. It took a while to get going but after a while it really clicked for him, to the point I had to put the interest rate down because it was getting ridiculously high :o (I coincided it with a raise in his pocket money so it didn't feel mean.)

Having an experience like this is often helpful in learning that money is finite and can easily run out, but budgeting really steps it up a gear IME and it's a useful skill to learn young before he needs to worry about bills and responsibilities.

Those criticising you for saying 'delighted', need to get a grip.
It's a life lesson. An easy one.
Life isn't all sunshine and daisies. Sometimes kids need a bit of tough love.

I wish dd had have learnt this lesson sooner. She blew her child trust fund when she was 18 in October (a few thousand) in 2 weeks on ‘stuff’ and is only just realising now how silly she’d been.

He's a young teenager and it's for you to support and scaffold him in learning to make good choices, not laugh at him when he fucks up

Yep. Quite an unpleasant way to look at it. I thought it would be delight because he had the chance to do it after all this time and had a great time with his mates and isn’t it lovely that they are getting the chance. But no, delighted that he is miserable that he chucked away so much money.

@newnamenewyear

It's hard to resist the urge to want to fix it for him!

But I know I need to, don't I?!

Be strong. If you pay it back he will learn nothing. In the real world no one will pay it back when he blows his first student loan, or his first salary cheque. This is really important. You have said you know what being rubbish with money looks like. Teach him a better way

OP, what did he actually buy?

It's a life lesson. An easy one.

My daughter has had more “life lessons” in her 12 years than many adults have in a lifetime. Believe me, there is no delight in it.

Those criticising you for saying 'delighted', need to get a grip.
It's a life lesson. An easy one.
Life isn't all sunshine and daisies. Sometimes kids need a bit of tough love.
As with everything though, teach them a lesson, don't delight that they went through disappointment to learn

@CuriousaboutSamphire

I'd be delighted too. It's a relatively cheap life lesson. One that won't have any drastic effects on anything important but will still Sting enough for him to remember.

Delighted because the know how much harder that lesson could have been

Delighted because he hasn't been hurt by it, has just annoyed himself.

Just resist the temptation to make it right for him

"I'd be delighted too. It's a relatively cheap life lesson. One that won't have any drastic effects on anything important but will still Sting enough for him to remember.

Delighted because the know how much harder that lesson could have been

Delighted because he hasn't been hurt by it, has just annoyed himself.

Just resist the temptation to make it right for him"

This. Absolutely.

I know where you’re coming from, although I think ‘delighted’ is a tad too far. 13 is plenty old enough to learn about consequences of spending money. I bet he doesn’t do it next time.
DS16 is an absolute sod for wasting his college lunch money that I give him weekly. He tried to guilt trip me this morning into giving him more, by saying in a sad little voice all he would eat today was a banana. My answer was I give him lunch money, not my problem if he choses to waste it on an expensive takeaway and taxis.

I thought you were going to say you are pleased he left the house and mooched around with his friends and ate McDonald's or whatever. Worth a few ££ in my view.

Learning by experience, fab.

I'm not judging you. I laughed at my 8yo who learned by experiene. He was soaking wet. He was told very clearly why jumping the ditch was a bad idea "you will get soaked, we will have to go home and you will have to walk a long way wet through." Guess what happened?!

You’ve handled this exactly right, OP. I have a DS13 and would have done exactly the same thing. He is not short of money for food, rent, heating etc - only what he would like. Now is when he needs to learn these lessons not when it would mean going short of food. Mine went into town just before Christmas and came home £30 poorer with nothing really to show for. Went to Five Guys - expensive burgers - and helped a friend out, paid someone else on to the big wheel etc, had a great time but did tell me afterwards that he didn’t realise how much he’d spent, so we talked about it.
I don’t think he was taken advantage of - the ones he helped out hadn’t realised what the plans were and didn’t have enough ££.
If you’re certain your DC wasn’t either then I’m sure the best thing is to just let him save up and learn the lesson.

I see where you are coming from. I think it’s a good lesson to learn sooner, rather than later. Who wants their child wasting all their student loan less than a month into a course and / or running up thousands they can’t repay on credit cards??

Don’t bail him out! I used to work with someone years ago ran up lots of debt on credit cards that she couldn’t repay. Her parents bailed her out. She still loved shopping so then ran up more debt she still couldn’t repay. Her parents refused to bail her out that time, she got made redundant, had to get her salary paid into her mums bank account and her mum would dish out pocket money. She is now in her late 40’s and probably still gets pocket money doled out by her husband

@Ionlydomassiveones

I’ve voted that YABU because so what if he blew £70 in town with his mates rather than buying some boring bit for his ‘hobby’? He probably had the time of his life until you did a Debbie Downer on it. I never get this idea of spending Christmas and birthday money ‘wisely’ - spend it on something fun I say. £70 doesn’t go far in today’s world - he’s learned a valuable lesson and had a good time with his mates. When he saves up for hobby thing - he’ll have learned the value of saving too. Win win. Chill out ffs.

That's pretty much what the OP said?

YANBU, but I think 'delighted' is possibly too strong a word to use. It's definitely stronger than 'pleased'.

I'm glad I learnt a similar lesson as a teenager. It's definitely better to learn "if I spend all my money on fun things I won't have any left" when you still have a free home, food, etc, than as an adult where it could get you into real difficulties.

Up to him. His money. But no way would I replace it. It is indeed a valuable lesson learnt.

If pissing away money and then having to go without just once was the life lesson some posters here seem to believe, there would be far fewer actual grown adults who are useless with money! Unfortunately I know a few for whom money burns a hole in their pocket, even when they know the gas bill is due next week.

I agree with @BertieBotts that what he needs is to be taught budgeting and imo at his age part of that is having a discussion with him and agreeing what pocket money/Christmas money is intended for. If you don’t want him to have access to £70 that he can take out with him all at once without a word then you have a conversation and come to an agreement about that. If you know he’s got £70 for Christmas or birthday you can suggest eg why don’t you keep £30 for going out with friends/walking around money and put the other £40 in your account towards X thing you’re saving for.

I wouldn’t replace the money because he does need to realise you can’t spend it and still have it but I don’t like the attitude that teenagers can only learn from negative experiences, so often seen on here. I’d rather help them with planning and budgeting so that they can develop good habits than just leave them to fail and call it a life lesson.